Many of us are living within real limits.
Limits of energy.
Limits of capacity.
Limits shaped by responsibility, care, health, family, work, and the wider state of the world.
Not imagined limits.
Not temporary inconveniences.
But real, tangible edges that shape how we move through our days.
For a long time, much of modern spiritual culture has offered a particular story about freedom – that it comes from rising above, transcending, escaping, or somehow outgrowing the messiness of being human.
That if we just heal enough, clear enough, expand enough, we will finally arrive somewhere beyond difficulty.
More and more, I’m sensing that this story no longer fits.
Not because we have failed.
But because we are maturing.
We are beginning to sense that freedom may not live outside of life, waiting for us on the other side of struggle.
It may live inside it.
The old story of freedom no longer fits
The old story of freedom is tangled up with striving.
With winning.
With becoming exceptional.
With having what others don’t.
With rising above the pack.
Even when dressed in spiritual language, this story often quietly asks us to leave parts of ourselves behind in order to be free.
Our tiredness.
Our grief.
Our dependency.
Our tenderness.
Our need for support.
Many of us no longer want that.
We are not longing to be untouchable. We are longing to be able to inhabit our lives more fully.
To feel what we feel. To be in relationship with our bodies, our people, our land, our spirits. To role model being free from the place of what we have, rather than from what we lack.
A different kind of freedom is emerging
A quieter kind of freedom is beginning to make itself known.
Not freedom as escape.
Not freedom as endless expansion.
Not freedom as the absence of constraint.
But freedom as something that can be felt, chosen, and embodied even when life contains real limits.
This kind of freedom is relational.
It grows through our relationship with our bodies.
Our breath.
Our instincts.
Our inner knowing.
The unseen currents that hold and accompany us.
In the Northern runic tradition, this current is beautifully mirrored by the rune Algiz — often spoken of as the rune of protection, but at a deeper level, a rune of blessing, guardianship, and connection with the divine.
Algiz does not promise to remove difficulty. It offers something subtler and, in many ways, more powerful:
The possibility of knowing, even briefly, that you are held. And from that knowing, something begins to change.
What becomes possible when you know you are safe
This is the question that keeps returning for me:
What becomes possible when you know you are safe?
Not in the abstract.
Not as a philosophical idea.
But as a lived, bodily experience – even if it only lasts a few breaths.
We all know the world is not, in any absolute sense, a safe place.
And yet many of us are living with a level of vigilance that is exhausting our systems and narrowing our lives.
When we are braced – armoured – continually scanning for threat, something vital begins to shut down.
Imagination contracts. Sensitivity becomes overload. Instinct goes quiet. Presence thins.
Algiz offers a different entry point. Through breath, through invocation, through simple embodied practices, we can touch moments of safety that do not depend on the world being different.
A sense of being held by the wings of the Valkyrie. Of being guided by something familiar and powerful. Of reaching out and finding what you need. A remembering that we are not alone in meeting life.
In the runic imagery of Algiz, this safety is often felt as a kind of cloak — feathers or wings gathering around the body. Not to hide us, but to allow us to stand upright without hardening.
When safety is presence the magical self is able to come forward. Unfragmented, unmasked. The part of you where heart and head are at peace.
Presence deepens. Choice becomes available. Possibility opens.
From this place, freedom no longer feels like something we have to reach for or fight our way toward.
It becomes something we can practice — quietly, repeatedly — from right where we are.
Freedom as belonging without being bound
One of the quieter teachings I return to again and again is this:
The deepest roots of the word free are closely related to the roots of the word love.
Not in the sense of romance or possession. In the sense of belonging.
This points us toward a very different understanding of freedom. Not of standing alone and cutting ourselves loose from relationships. Freedom as chosen belonging, every day.
Belonging because we consent.
Belonging because we feel resourced enough to stay.
Belonging because we are in relationship with ourselves.
In this sense, freedom is not the absence of ties. It is the presence of choice within them.
We begin to sense where we are staying from fear. Where we are staying from habit. Where we are staying from genuine devotion and care.
And we begin to feel where a quiet, honest “no” is needed. Where a tender “yes” wants to emerge.
Not as an act of rebellion. Not as a dramatic rupture. But as an expression of integrity.
This is another way freedom becomes embodied. We stop trying to extract ourselves from life. We learn how to meet life more honestly.
Algiz is a key initiatory rune – it prepares the way for Sowilo, the inner compass, and the the final 8 runes where polarity becomes creativity and different forms of knowledge synthesise into wisdom.
Unbinding from the long winter
Yesterday, in community, we gathered to explore the theme of unbinding from the long winter.
Not as a demand for sudden spring or a push toward brightness, productivity, or renewal.
But as a gentle, honest inquiry into what it means to loosen what has been held for a long time. What struck me most is that we did not work directly with Algiz, but with what Algiz had quietly inspired within the field:
Freedom to stay within the wintering state for as long as is needed.
Freedom to sense the possible without yet reaching for it.
Freedom to release and let go without immediately needing to fill up with more.
This, too, is a form of freedom.
A form that honours rhythm, timing and the intelligence of the body and the soul.
The circle wove together a number of my different practices — with the runes and without — all oriented toward supporting the first small movements of unbinding.
Not forcing anything open. Not insisting on change. Simply creating conditions where life can begin to move again in its own way.
Afterwards, one participant shared:
“The rune circle was wonderful and powerfully done and so very healing for me.
Thank you for the opportunity to unbind from the winter and protect myself going forward.”
For me, this speaks to the heart of the work.
Unbinding is not dramatic. It is quiet, subtle and deeply respectful.
And it happens most easily when we feel safe enough to bring everything.
Practices that nourish presence
When we begin to understand freedom as something that grows from presence and safety, the question subtly shifts.
Not: “How do I become free?”
But: “What helps me feel present enough to be here?”
Often, it is not the big, dramatic practices that make the difference. It is small, repeatable acts of tending. Pausing. Breathing. Feeling from inside the body (If you haven’t read it before I highly recommend Philip Shepherd’s Radical Wholeness.
You might place a hand on your belly and notice the rise and fall of breath.
You might feel your feet on the ground and sense their contact with the earth.
You might quietly invoke a quality you wish to invite – protection, softness, steadiness, clarity.
Not to force a particular state. But to open a door.
These kinds of practices are not about fixing ourselves. They are about remembering how to listen. They help us notice:
Where the body already knows it is safe.
Where something wants to soften.
Where a tiny “yes” is forming.
From there, presence begins to grow.
And as presence grows, freedom becomes less abstract.
It becomes something we practice in the texture of ordinary life.
A New Moon Oracle for this threshold
I’ve shared a New Moon Oracle exploring these themes — freedom, safety, Algiz, and the kind of presence that allows life to move again in quiet, truthful ways.
You are not waiting to be empowered. You are not broken. You are not behind.
Even within real limits, even within uncertainty, a different kind of freedom is available. The freedom to stay. The freedom to feel. The freedom to choose presence again and again. The freedom to meet your life as it is, with honesty and care.
If it feels supportive, you might gently ask yourself over the coming days:
Where does my body already know it is safe?
And from that place…
What becomes possible from here?
Added the book recommendation to my list – Thanks Maggie 🥰
I’m very glad it was useful